A QUARTER of small businesses are so scared about being sued they are refusing to tackle their own lazy staff.

According to a survey by Employment Law Advisory Services, one in four small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) has far more staff throwing "sickies" than it has taken action against. Yet almost nine out of 10 businesses said they would discipline their workers if they were legally confident to do so.

Now ELAS has come up with a possible solution by devising a piece of software to help employers stay on the right side of the law.

Lawyers at the firm have devised a personnel package which not only keeps a record of workers' sick days, but alerts managers when absenteeism levels become a problem. It then guides them, step by step, through the correct disciplinary procedures to take.

"Many companies these days are so convinced that employment law is weighted on the side of employees that they are afraid to tackle what are serious issues in the workplace," said Peter Mooney, head of consultancy at ELAS.

"This survey shows that for a large number of businesses, that means suffering at the hands of lazy workers rather than face up to issues such as excess absenteeism.

"They are so scared that they will end up in court for tackling an issue head on, that they sit back and suffer when they don't need to."

ELAS surveyed 600 small businesses about their attitudes towards absenteeism and found that just over 25 per cent had significantly more staff whose attendance was a "serious problem" than they had taken action against.

Yet 88 per claimed they would tackle lazy staff if they were confident it not result in an expensive tribunal.

Employersafe can alsohelp spot issues which managers might be less aware of such as patterns in workers' absence, singling out those people who only fall ill, for example, on Mondays or Fridays and how much their absence costs.

The software - which has been developed at a cost of £600,000 - even

calculates just how much each workers' absenteeism is costing the company.